PESHAWAR, Aug 12: Failure of the health department to launch an effective publicity campaign aimed at quashing rumours about harmful effects of polio vaccine has been hampering immunisation drive in the NWFP, official sources said.
“There are about a dozen donor organisations, including WHO and Unicef, who are financing the anti-polio campaign in the province, but poor publicity regarding oral polio vaccine had not achieved the desired results,” said a WHO official.
In April, the official said, the health department in collaboration with the Unicef organised two workshops and formed a media group for creating awareness about the significance of the OPV for children. “But there is no follow-up and the situation remained the same. Number of refusals from parents to administer vaccinations to their children has reached to 30,000 in the NWFP and Fata,” he added.
The official said in October last year, a meeting of some ulema held in Peshawar and issued a decree, asking the people that the OPV did not cause infertility and impotence. They said it was the religious duty of parents to vaccinate their children and save them from disability. But, he said, no effective campaign had been launched to inform the people about the decree.
He claimed that the publicity materials that were printed by the Unicef, including banners and posters highlighting the significance of the OPV, had not yet been displayed. He said: “Go to any EDO’s office and you will see the publicity materials packed.”
An Executive District Officer of the health department said that the department had received the publicity materials from the Unicef but they had not been displayed because of non availability of workers.
He said each of over 900 union councils of the province had received Rs15,000 from the donor agencies for the publicity campaign but failed to utilise the money.
The WHO official said that the donor agencies were extremely concerned about the anti-OPV propaganda. He said 16 confirmed cases of polio last year and five cases this year had so far been reported in the NWFP and Fata. Half of these children, he added, had not been vaccinated due to the anti-OPV propaganda.
Furthermore, local journalists are facing a difficult task of getting correct information about refusal cases. A case in point is that the health department says that about 3,778 children have not been vaccinated due to refusals by parents in the March’s anti-polio drive.
A report compiled by the WHO for the same campaign showed number of refusals as more than 26,000, said a source. He said that the department should provide clear picture to media if it was really interested to cope with the situation regarding the success of the anti-polio campaign.
